[#20] Genesis 1:26 – The Image of God (Part 2)

What does it mean to be made in the image of God? We began to see an answer to this in last week’s episode, and will finish answering this question in this study of Genesis 1:26.

In the previous study of Genesis 1:26, we began to look at what it means to be made in the image of God. We saw that it cannot refer to anything related to the Trinity, or to the popular idea that humans have intellect, emotions, and will. We do have these things, but this is not what it means to be made in the image of God.

I stated that there were four contextual keys about what it means to be made in the image of God, and I shared the first one with you. The first contextual key was the text of Genesis 1 itself. There are seven activities of God in Genesis 1, and in various ways, God instructs humans to engage in all seven of these activities. When we do the works of God, we are living as the image of God on earth.

That was the first contextual key. The next three keys all pretty much reveal the exact same thing, but from different perspectives. So the final three contextual keys which what us understand what it means to be made in the image of God help the support the idea that we have already seen, that you and I are the image of God on earth, and that we live as His image when we act the way God acts.

We look at these three contextual keys in today’s episode of the One Verse Podcast.

The Text of Genesis 1:26

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

In This Discussion of Genesis 1:26, we look at:

What it means to be made in the image of God.

The cultural context of Egyptian and Babylonian religion and royalty.

The ritual by which ancient priests made images of their gods.

The connection between the image of God and the prohibition in the Mosaic Law against making graven images.

How Jesus as the perfect image of God shows us how to live as the image of God.

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